Tom Allen: ‘I thought gardening was for old people, but now I like the idea of being an old lady’

Tom Allen burst on to the comedy scene as a 22-year-old in 2005, winning the So You Think You’re Funny award. He also appeared in the films Colour Me Kubrick and Starter for 10, before performing two sold-out shows at the Edinburgh Festival in 2015 and 2016. A regular on panel shows including 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and Just a Minute, he co-hosts The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice, and has just launched a gardening podcast called Pottering. After the death of his father, Paul, four years ago, he has found solace in the walled garden of his Victorian terraced home in Bromley, where he lives with his partner, Alfie, and his mother, Irene.

Where do you live and what type of garden do you have?

In Chislehurst, close to where I grew up. I inherited a beautiful, low-maintenance garden from the previous owners, a family with children. I kept the trampoline they had left as my two-year-old niece loves it and also because it’s a great way to shift creative blockages and to decompress. My neighbours do occasionally see my head bobbing up and down over their fences.

Have you made many changes to the garden?

When I moved in, the lawn had square edges, white hydrangeas, the trampoline, a swing set and a slide, so it felt a little like a pub garden. I got rid of the rest of the play equipment and made that part of the garden into a social area.

Tell us about your beloved vegetable patch.

My dad died four years ago, and he’d always grown his own vegetables, particularly runner beans, so I thought it would be a good thing for me to do. We had a vegetable bed built and it makes me feel more emotionally connected to him. Grieving somebody close to you can feel insurmountable, so developing the vegetable patch and the garden slows down my busy mind. When you lose someone, there’s a lot of “sadmin”, or “deadmin”, so having a practical focus helps. Meditation apps don’t work for me; my garden allows me to be more mindful. I like just to be among it and notice the changes.

Did you enjoy gardens as a child?

I found them depressing and boring. Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, we’d visit garden centres on a Sunday afternoon, and I found it unbearably tedious. I equated gardening with being old and just didn’t understand it, but then I realised I liked the idea of being an old lady. I started to see myself as a Miss Marple without all the murders. I like the idea of all the kitsch and that yesteryear aesthetic. I’ve always had a fondness for old things and felt like an old soul.

Was there a horticultural epiphany?

The pandemic happened, suddenly I was in my late 30s, I saw this house and just thought, “Maybe now is the time for me to play the suburban old lady.” Then I lost my dad, and I almost don’t recognise the me before that point. I was always chasing things; seeking another experience over the garden wall; but now, I’m so much more in the moment, and my garden is very much part of that.

How comforting do you find the horticultural processes of growth and seasonal changes?

Planting seeds in the vegetable patch does feel meditative. You can’t hurry it. You have to wait for it to happen on its own terms, and once you allow yourself to fall into its rhythm, there’s something hugely rewarding about that. You see this little sprig coming through and that change is thrilling.

What’s your proudest horticultural achievement in the garden?

I’m very fond of a pot given to me by Alfie’s grandad, which houses a dahlia bought for me by Alfie, a trailing geranium from my mum, and a lobelia that I bought, plus some self-sown wildflower, so it feels very much like a joint effort. I’m proudest of the imperfections in my garden, which have taught me to lean more into life’s imperfections.

What do you grow?

Borlotti beans, potatoes, runner beans, garden peas, radishes, cabbages, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes and – less successfully – carrots.

What’s harder to cultivate, fruit and veg or audience laughs?

It’s definitely harder to cultivate fruit and vegetables. As you get older, I find it easier to connect with people, which is what comedy is. Getting into the headspace of fruit and veg is more difficult, because they can’t talk so you don’t know what they’re thinking or feeling.

What’s more satisfying, comedy or gardening?

A show is a bit like a garden in that when you take a show on tour, you don’t know what it’s going to look like when you start. You think, “I’ve got nothing to say. This won’t work. No one’s going to laugh.” And then, you start doing it, and it starts to grow. Over time, you evolve into it, and you relax into it, just like the garden.

Have you had any garden failures?

A banana palm didn’t fare well. Nor did a bird of paradise, which should have stayed inside, and my potted lavender just wouldn’t do as it was told.

The oversized central pot is a bold statement…

It’s a reproduction urn I bought online, and when it arrived, I laughed as I thought it would be half the size. It’s massive and initially it made the garden look like a Parisian cemetery, but as it’s weathered, everything seems to have shrunk around it, and now, it no longer jars.

How would you like the garden to evolve?

Should my family give up on trampolining, I’m keen on the idea of a sunken greenhouse. It’d be deep enough to get in and potter about, so I’d love that.

Has your midlife gardening enthusiasm surprised you?

Totally. Twenty years ago, I had visions of living a very cool metropolitan life with a London or New York flat, but nature gets us all in the end, and what gardening represents to me now is a sense of being in the here and now and just letting things be. You don’t need to keep pushing all the time. Let things grow at their own pace.

Tom Allen’s gardening podcast, Pottering, is out now.